Socrates replied: What say you then? Shall we first survey the ground
already traversed, and retrace the steps on which we were agreed, so
that, if possible we may conduct the remaining portion of the argument
to its issue with like unanimity? [3]

[3] Lit. "try whether we can go through the remaining steps with
like..."

Crit. Why, yes! If it is agreeable for two partners in a business to
run through their accounts without dispute, so now as partners in
an argument it will be no less agreeable to sum up the points under
discussion, as you say, with unanimity.

Soc. Well, then, we agreed that economy was the proper title of a branch
of knowledge, and this branch of knowledge appeared to be that whereby
men are enabled to enhance the value of their houses or estates; and
by this word "house or estate" we understood the whole of a man's
possessions; and "possessions" again we defined to include those things
which the possessor should find advantageous for the purposes of his
life; and things advantageous finally were discovered to mean all that
a man knows how to use and turn to good account. Further, for a man to
learn all branches of knowledge not only seemed to us an impossibility,
but we thought we might well follow the example of civil communities
in rejecting the base mechanic arts so called, on the ground that they
destroy the bodies of the artisans, as far as we can see, and crush
their spirits.

The clearest proof of this, we said, [4] could be discovered if, on the
occasion of a hostile inroad, one were to seat the husbandmen and the
artisans apart in two divisions, and then proceed to put this question
to each group in turn: "Do you think it better to defend our country
districts or to retire from the fields [5] and guard the walls?" And we
anticipated that those concerned with the soil would vote to defend
the soil; while the artisans would vote not to fight, but, in docile
obedience to their training, to sit with folded hands, neither expending
toil nor venturing their lives.

[4] This S. 6 has no parallel supra. See Breit. and Schenkl ad loc.
for attempts to cure the text.

[5] See Cobet, "N. L." 580, reading {uphemenous}, or if {aphemenous}
transl. "to abandon."

Next we held it as proved that there was no better employment for a
gentleman--we described him as a man beautiful and good--than this of
husbandry, by which human beings procure to themselves the necessaries
of life. Thi